BeanComparator.compare() doesn't can't handle null values returned by bean properties
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Key: BEANUTILS-268
URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/BEANUTILS-268
Project: Commons BeanUtils
Issue Type: Bug
Components: Bean-Collections
Affects Versions: 1.7.0
Reporter: Jacob Kjome
I've got a bean that has properties that will, at times, return null values. BeanComparator
appears to fail with a NullPointerException. It's difficult to tell exactly where because
the exception thrown is a ClassCastException with a message of e.toString(), so all I know
is that a NullPointerException happened, not where it happened.
I suspect that the exception happens inside the compare(Object, Object) method with the call...
Object value1 = PropertyUtils.getProperty( o1, property );
Looking into PropertyUtils, and following the path, it seems like the problematic code is
in...
PropertyUtilsBean.getNestedProperty(Object, String)
That code is rather involved. If I get around to performing a minimal testcase, I'll see
if I can narrow down the exception to a particular piece of code. In any case, there's no
reason why a bean shouldn't be allowed to return null for a given property.
My workaround is to add methods for respective properties that are guaranteed to not return
null. For instance, if I have a getter called getMyValue(), I create a corresponding method
called getMyValueNotNul(). I have to take care with the value it returns, though. The position
in a sort for a null value would be different than a literal empty String. So, depending
on the Object type, I have to make up values which will either come before all other non-null
values or after all other non-null values (I don't recall what the natural order of null values
are; whether they come first or last. I know when ordering on a SQLcolumn, null values show
up last. Hopefully that behavior is consistent here, but that's beside the point here).
I hope this can be fixed before 1.8.0 is released!
Jake
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